horizontal integration
(noun)
The merger or acquisition of new business operations.
Examples of horizontal integration in the following topics:
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Growth Strategy
- Generic examples of commonly selected strategic growth platforms include pursuit of specific and new product areas, entry into new distribution channels, vertical or horizontal integration, and new product development.
- Horizontal integration – The merger or acquisition of new business operations.
- An example of horizontal integration would be Apple entering the search-engine market or a new industry related to laptops and smartphones.
- Vertical integration – Integrating successive stages in the production and marketing process under the ownership or control of a single management organization.
- Distinguish between the varying integrations and diversifications that allow businesses to pursue strategic growth
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Horizontal Communication
- Horizontal communication is the flow of messages across individuals and groups on the same level of an organization.
- Horizontal communication does not involve relaying information up or down across levels.
- Some barriers to horizontal communication are differences in style, personality, or roles amongst co-workers.
- Lingering expectations from the old system can significantly inhibit the implementation of horizontal communication.
- Horizontal communication refers to any communication between employees at the same level of an organization
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Types of Organizations
- At the same time, there are some businesses that support informal and horizontal forms of communication.
- Regarding internal communications, smaller non-profits might lean toward using a combination of both formal and informal methods coupled with horizontal communication strategies.
- Corporate social responsibility (CSR), also called corporate conscience, is a form of corporate self-regulation integrated into a business model.
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Types of Organizational Culture
- Individualism vs. collectivism: This could best be described as the degree to which an organization integrates a group mentality and promotes a strong sense of community (as opposed to independence) within the organization.
- Person culture: In this type of culture, horizontal structures are most applicable.
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The Organizational Chart
- The different types of organization charts include hierarchical, matrix, and flat (also known as horizontal).
- Product lines are managed horizontally and functions are managed vertically.
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Flattening Hierarchies
- A hierarchy can link entities either directly or indirectly; it can also link entities either vertically or horizontally.
- Parts of the hierarchy that are not linked vertically to one another can be horizontally linked through a path by traveling up the hierarchy; this path eventually reaches a common direct or indirect superior and then travels down the hierarchy again.
- Flat (or horizontal) organizational structures have few or no levels of intervening management between staff and managers.
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Employee Transfers
- Transfers can be horizontal, between departments within an organization, or vertical, from one level in the organization to another, either up or down.
- It is useful to view promotions and demotions as vertical and transfers as horizontal (though they can be vertical as well, to a certain extent).
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Building Support for Intrapreneurship
- Having access to upper management, and understanding the strategic motivations behind their decisions, plays an integral role in building top-down support organizationally.
- Recognizing what customers want and learning how to give it to them more effectively are integral to successful intrapreneurship.
- One useful way to integrate stakeholders and speak the language of upper management is to numerically demonstrate that a new idea is financially and strategically feasible.
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Informal Communication
- In the past, many organizations considered informal communication (generally associated with interpersonal, horizontal communication) a hindrance to effective organizational performance and tried to stamp it out.
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Managers as Leaders of Change
- Conner (1998) identified six distinct leadership styles related to change: anti-change, rational, panacea, bolt-on, integrated, and continuous.
- The integrated leader - The integrated leader searches for ways to use the structure and discipline of what Harding and Rouse (2007) called "human due diligence" (the leadership practice of understanding the culture of an organization and the roles, capabilities, and attitudes of its people) as individual change projects are created and implemented.
- The concept is simply to combine, or integrate, human and cultural concerns with the strategy itself.
- When an organization is engaging in discontinuous, transformational change, however, integrated and continuous leadership styles are more appropriate .